Carnival of Homeschool Parents

Sunday, February 4, 2018

23 and Me

OK, so I'm a curious person. For years I've been thinking about those DNA testers and thinking I'd get to it sometime. This is the time. I gathered up my spit and sent it in to 23 and Me a couple of weeks ago and now I'm waiting for the results. Only four to six more weeks to go before I get my results.On my dad's side of the family we can only go so far back, back to my dad's grandfather. That man, according to the only family story that I know about him, was raised in an orphanage someplace in Bern, Switzerland...the place burned down. That's it. And I don't even know if that story is true.

One elderly and incredibly beloved relative of mine once told me that someone in our family was Italian and had invented the Gamma Ray, because their name was Gamma. LOL. I'm thinking that some parts of that story aren't true; in fact, much of what little I know is questionable. For a number of reasons, family history is pretty sketchy on both sides of my family.On Mom's side I'm pretty sure it's all German all of the way down.

I don't expect to find anything except for German and Swiss back to the beginning of time, but I'm still looking forward to the results. I'm not really interested in the health information. I figure I already know most of that. And I figure I'm genetically-related to some fairly basic people. Know what? It's just about the knowing. We can know these things now. This kind of information is available to us, we here in 2017, for the first time ever. In all of humanity, we can know what our own ancestors couldn't have known and wouldn't have understood. I want to know just because I can know.

Because I also know that my great great grandfather was the center of a hot, hot star. The cauldron of the center of him cooked up the heavy elements that allowed stuff to be born from the most basic elements. My ancestors swarmed in the warm, early seas and, with the force of their breath, created the atmosphere that we take for granted. The atmosphere that protects us from the coldness of space. My ancestors then crawled from that sea to explore the shores of the great landforms of Pangaea and before. And after, carrying with them the essential building blocks of my heart, my mind, my blood.

They learned to climb and fly and dig and live in every habitat they found their way into. Their DNA collecting all of the information around them to hand down to me. Some took to the skies on gossamer wings, others on wings of bone and sinew, seeing the terra below them from heights that land-walking cousins could only imagine. Some of these cousins preferred the height and built their homes in the tallest of trees or in the highest corner. Some burrowed into black dirt and were warm. These ancestors diverged further from their below kin, making the unseen currents their new oceans. Their blood still singing the songs of our connection.

Many ancestors hung in the trees and talked with their cousins who preferred being down below. These cousins loved one another for aeons. Some of my cousins, those ancestors who can still be found in my DNA, and yours, stood taller and understood more. They fought and learned and discovered more and more. Their journeys across the ever-changing continents still play in our brains, in each and every cell of our bodies, silently telling their continuous stories.

When they could not know, they used their developing brain and created stories to explain things beyond their comprehension. They celebrated all of nature around them, held nature in awe, and created pieces of art in their wonder. Art that depicted their questions, those things that nurtured them, those things that they desired. This art and these stories filled a part of them that they didn't even know existed before this.

Some hid in homes constructed of stone, some in spit and wattle, some under logs, others within the very earth itself, warm and safe. I am a part of that chain. And now we are here, today, learning where the DNA will take me. Because we can.

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I wrote this post and then I found this beautiful piece!!!!!!! More beautiful then I could ever create!

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About Karen

I'm an atheist parent!

I am a Midwestern American, very open atheist, secular humanist, science lover, cohost of The Secular Parents on the SecularTv channel on Youtube, and I'm mum to two amazing human beings (ages 20 and 17).

We homeschooled for over twelve years. Now I'm entering into my "empty nest" years...

I enjoy reading and movies, astronomy, photography, travel, and being with the people I love.I want to believe in the inherent goodness of people.Sometimes that's really hard.

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